


an honest thing

by patrokla



Category: The Libertines
Genre: 2015 reunion, M/M, Retrospective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4598163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s when Pete lies that Carl figures out how he truly feels about things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an honest thing

**Author's Note:**

> I don't mean to keep writing about these two, but I can't quite help it. Title from Edna St. Vincent Millay's excellent 'What Savage Blossom' - which originally was supposed to be the inspiration, but in the end is only tangentially related. My apologies in advance for the change in tense and all the rest of it, really.

If one were to collect and collate every interview that Pete’s given in the last few years, they would find what Carlos has always said to be true: Peter Doherty is an inveterate liar.  
  
In the spirit of fairness, however, Carl must admit (if only to himself) that Pete rarely really lies. There is a grain of truth in all of his fanciful tales and escapes, and occasionally much more than a single grain.   
  
It’s when Pete lies that Carl figures out how he truly feels about things. When he says ‘you didn’t visit me once!’ and Carl, indignant, listed every time he had in fact visited a series of dingy flats across Europe simply to see Pete, he realized that Pete hadn’t put any stock in the visits, nor got much out of them. It’s a process that took him months to learn and years to master - if it’s possible to master such a thing. Pete may be an open book, but the meaning of the words on his pages has never been transparent.   
  
Carl sees himself as a far simpler man. It’s one of those things he’s come to terms with over the last decade. When they were both young he’d fought tooth and nail to be as inscrutable and complicated as Pete seemed to be, but he could never do it so effortlessly. Now, he enjoys an aura of mystery and romance if he can summon one, but if not  - well, he’s poured his heart out a dozen times over in verse. If anyone deserves to just be, it’s him.  
  
Pete, obstinate to a fault, declares this to be a load of rubbish whenever Carl says it. Possibly he could stop saying it quite so smugly, but it’s not his fault that he’s mostly figured himself out and Pete is still muddling around in the dark eighty percent of the time.   
  
‘Just because you’ve stopped lying to yourself as much as you used to,’ is how Pete’s rant on the subject always starts, and it generally ends with Pete’s mouth slanting with unusual cruelty as he bites out the words ‘for someone who’s so honest, you still can’t bring yourself not to lie about _that_!’  
  
The last word, spat out vehemently, is followed by Pete leaning back into the sofa or the wall or sometimes the air itself while Carl flushes like a schoolboy who’s been scolded. The start of the argument is new, but the ending is very, very old, and Carl has still not managed to find a satisfactory closing remark. Once - just once - he’d felt his blood run cold as ice and he’d hissed ‘Why would I want to tell anyone about a junkie whore?’  
  
In some ways, that had been the end. Carl’s tossed and turned over that moment many times over the years and he never forgets the look on Pete’s face - stripped bare, absolutely and completely, every mask dropped to the floor. Devastation, and then vicious satisfaction at having pushed Carl that far. Pete always was a bit of a masochist (what other type of person could’ve written ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’?).  
  
But that had been a singular occasion. Generally, Carl will flush and then sigh in resignation, because what Pete has wanted has always been impossible and now it is especially so. Carl highly doubts that Pete even wants that anymore, he just says so because they’ve never been good at staying away from their old patterns.  
  
He’s tried once this time around to be logical about it:  
  
‘What good would that do?’ he asks. ‘What would that achieve? If I took to Twitter and told them all ‘oh by the by, the rumours were true and we did fuck, once upon a time but it’s over now’ - how would that make anything better?’  
  
‘It’s not about anything being better, it’s about you not lying to yourself!’ Pete exclaims, looking strangely tired. ‘It’s about you not being ashamed.’  
  
 _Of me,_ Carl hears, and his heart twists a little at it. He crosses the few feet separating him and Pete in seconds and brings a hand up to clasp the back of his neck.  
  
‘I’m not ashamed of you,’ he says, and Pete gives him a look. ‘I’m not! I - look, Pete, you know I love you.’  
  
The last words are slightly pleading, and Pete’s eyes soften. He presses against Carl, wraps an arm around him.  
  
‘I know,’ he says softly. ‘I just wish…’  
  
He trails off, and Carl feels a sudden tear trying to escape his eye. He puts his other arm around Pete, wrapping the other around his neck and closing whatever gap there might’ve been between them. Pete can just about rest his head on top of Carl’s if he tries, and when they were young he was annoyed by it but now it’s too familiar to be anything but comforting.  
  
‘Yeah,’ he says roughly, mumbling into Pete’s neck. ‘Me, too.’  
  
 _I do love you_ , he thinks, smudging the words silently across Pete’s skin. And it’s not as honest as Pete wants, but it’s a start.  
  
They stay like that, folded into each other, for a long time. 


End file.
